Watch: Rare Boise River Festival Parade Video Found

If you moved to Boise after 2003, you probably have no idea why the Boise Music Festival sometimes gets called the “Boise River Festival.” Once called America’s Finest Family Festival, the Boise River Festival walked so that events like Boise Music Festival and Treefort Music Festival could run.

What Was the Boise River Festival?

Created in 1991, the Boise River Festival was a multi-day event in June that filled venues all over the city with events like live music, a Blue Angels air show, Boise’s first hot air balloon festival and nite glow, and sports competitions including everything from golf and softball to bowling and fun runs.

However, the events people missed the most after the festival disappeared in 2004 were the two unique parades it brought to Downtown Boise. The premiere event was the Nite-Lite Parade where the floats in the parade literally floated down the Boise River. They were designed by the same company that creates floats for the Tournament of Roses parade in California.

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According to an old Idaho Statesman article, the floats reached up to 17 feet tall, so parts of them had to be engineered to retract when they passed under four of the bridges that criss-crossed the Boise River. KTVB did a really cool recap of what it took to create the floats on the 208 a few years ago. I moved to Boise in 2010, so it’s the only video I’ve ever seen of the Nite-Lite Parade.

Extremely Rare Video Footage of Boise River Giants Parade Appears on Facebook

The other parade was the River Giants parade that filled the streets of Downtown Boise with 45–75 helium balloons similar to what you’d see at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. At the time it was the only inflatable parade in the Northwest. Despite digging deep, deep into the depths of YouTube, I never came across footage of a River Giants parade…until today!

Facebook user Bob Craft recently uploaded a video of the very first River Giants Parade to the History of Boise, Idaho – 1863 to Present group on Facebook. Because it’s in a group, there’s no code to embed it on our website, but the group is public and you can view the video HERE!

Whether the video brings back memories for your family or satisfies your curiosity about what the defunct Boise River Festival was like, it’s very cool to see the giant Popeye, Dennis the Menace and Tom & Jerry balloons make their way down Capitol Boulevard.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did!